Innocent Megaupload user asks court to order his data returned

A videographer with an ill-timed hard drive crash is users' poster child

An Ohio videographer has stepped forward to be the poster boy for innocent users who lost access to data due to the January seizure of Megaupload's servers. He has asked the Virginia court overseeing the case to order that his files be returned.

Kyle Goodwin runs a business taping high school sporting events across the state. He kept two copies of his videos: one on a personal hard drive, the other on a premium Megaupload account. But in January, disaster struck. The hard drive failed, and shortly afterwards, the federal government raided Megaupload. As a result, Goodwin lost access to hours of valuable footage.

With the assistance of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Goodwin has been attempting to negotiate for the return of his data. But now EFF says those negotiations have reached an impasse. So it has asked the courts to establish a procedure for Goodwin, and other innocent users like him, to retrieve their files.

The brief argues that it's unreasonable to force Goodwin to wait more than five months for the return of his data. For example, "at least four parents have agreed to pay Mr. Goodwin to put together highlight reels of their chidlren's sports season to send to colleges for recruitment purposes." But the footage he needs is trapped on Megaupload's servers. Goodwin's company has also lost "the original files of all of its promotional videos and other news packages, leaving Mr. Goodwin and his producers unable to extract the video to make more packages and promote their site as they try to secure crucial additional funding for the growing business."

EFF argues that the law is on Goodwin's side. The courts have repeatedly held that when governments seize property, they must take care not to trample the property rights of innocent third parties. While most of those cases have focused on tangible property, EFF contends that exactly the same principles apply to valuable data.

And the stakes are high. While EFF has chosen to make Goodwin the public face of innocent Megaupload users—his unlucky hard drive crash makes him particularly sympathetic—there could be many other innocent users who were harmed by the shutdown of the Megaupload servers. Moreover, EFF points out, the seizure of digital goods has become an increasingly common practice, so the handling of this case will set an important precedent.

This is acceptable collateral damage. Can you see it in the government's deliberate refusal to even have a dialog? This is a WAR, a war of imperialism (or some -ism) and, just as in every other war, collateral damage to innocents is acceptable so long as the goal is achieved and citizens none the wiser. The government of the time considered the collateral damage in Vietnam to be perfectly acceptable, but citizens DID become the wiser and thus the government eventually forked its tongue and decried it. It will require a similar wisening here to make the government once again speak with a forked tongue and suddenly see things differently.

This is acceptable collateral damage. Can you see it in the government's deliberate refusal to even have a dialog? This is a WAR, a war of imperialism (or some -ism) and, just as in every other war, collateral damage to innocents is acceptable so long as the goal is achieved and citizens none the wiser. The government of the time considered the collateral damage in Vietnam to be perfectly acceptable, but citizens DID become the wiser and thus the government eventually forked its tongue and decried it. It will require a similar wisening here to make the government once again speak with a forked tongue and suddenly see things differently.

Collateral damage is acceptable when the cause is important and the damage is impossible to prevent.

In this case the damage would have been trivial to prevent by leaving the site up and simply blocking all sharing - so all data was accessible only to the original users. They could have even set a limit on how long it would have been available.

The other point, about whether the cause was important enough, I leave for others to debate. But really it's irrelevant when the harm is easily preventable.

I do wonder, now, with everything shut down and (I think) unplugged, how hard would it be to retrieve these particular files? Could they determine which unit the files are on, or would the whole system need to be set up?

I hereby issue two regulation internet/computer facepalms: One for the 'business' owner without local backups and one for the gub'mint not having a timely procedure for minimizing damage to third parties.

This is acceptable collateral damage. Can you see it in the government's deliberate refusal to even have a dialog? This is a WAR, a war of imperialism (or some -ism) and, just as in every other war, collateral damage to innocents is acceptable so long as the goal is achieved and citizens none the wiser. The government of the time considered the collateral damage in Vietnam to be perfectly acceptable, but citizens DID become the wiser and thus the government eventually forked its tongue and decried it. It will require a similar wisening here to make the government once again speak with a forked tongue and suddenly see things differently.

Collateral damage is acceptable when the cause is important and the damage is impossible to prevent.

In this case the damage would have been trivial to prevent by leaving the site up and simply blocking all sharing - so all data was accessible only to the original users. They could have even set a limit on how long it would have been available.

The other point, about whether the cause was important enough, I leave for others to debate. But really it's irrelevant when the harm is easily preventable.

I do wonder, now, with everything shut down and (I think) unplugged, how hard would it be to retrieve these particular files? Could they determine which unit the files are on, or would the whole system need to be set up?

You are missing the point of the prosecution. Destroying MU as an entity and chilling all other similar businesses. 'Getting' and possibly jailing Kim Dotcom is icing on the cake. As long as MU is destroyed the MAFIAA got what it wanted, everything else is a bonus.

Oh, and the Obama haters, don't kid yourselves a McCain administration would have done exactly the same thing.

Bottom line here is that MegaUpload should NOT have been shut down. They were adhering by the DMCA (which as a New Zealand company, they did not absolutely HAVE to) and shut down infringers accounts on a regular basis.

In fact, MegaUpload was marked as the filehost to AVOID if anything was infringing (even in an insane person's mind) that you were uploading.

This appears to have been an attempt by the federal government of the United States and various corporate concerns to shut down filehosting forever. It didn't work in the slightest.

I was one of those legal uploaders. I had no idea there were movies and stuff on the site, I used it for file transfer with clients who weren't tech-inclined enough to use FTP. For example I did a movie poster for something that hadn't come out yet. It was a weekend rush job.There was no way for the client (in LA) to get the file to me (in San Diego) more quickly than megaupload, which he used for everything. So he put the entire movie up there and I used that for reference and screen grabs to make the poster. The only real delay was waiting for his huge movie file to upload (he's writer/director so he had all rights).

On the other hand I've asked people about it since the shut down and they regularly say they went to megaupload to watch movies, so the issue is a bit hard to figure out. I just know it was a really useful service for me as a freelancer. Can't they go through the accounts and keep it open for those of us using it lawfully?

Oh please, what about the poor "innocent" artists, musicians, filmmakers, authors whose work was routinely ripped off and monetized by Megaupload and its affiliates? Face the fact that theirs was a business model predicated on piracy.

Those who lost their work should blame Megaupload for using an illegal business model, not those who closed it down. The victims here are victims because of Megaupload's illegal/illicit practices.

Oh please, what about the poor "innocent" artists, musicians, filmmakers, authors whose work was routinely ripped off and monetized by Megaupload and its affiliates? Face the fact that theirs was a business model predicated on piracy.

Those who lost their work should blame Megaupload for using an illegal business model, not those who closed it down. The victims here are victims because of Megaupload's illegal/illicit practices.

This whole case is a crock of shit.The Government has clearly overstepped beyond the line.They have shown us just how Corrupt they truly are.Washington is a Cancer on this Nation and they will pay for this and more.Just wait and see what happens in the next 5 - 15 years.I hate this Government and so do Millions of other Citizens.They took our Laws & Our Constitution and used it to wipe their Dirty Money-Taking Asses on this Case.It is so clear to see you have to be a complete imbecile to not understand just what they have done here.1.Constitution Spat Upon2.International Treaties Spat Upon3.US Legal Code Spat Upon................666.Your day will come Greedy Politicians

The point here is that the government handled this in a ham-fisted way by disconnecting the servers where a more reasonable approach would have been to only allow original uploaders access to their data (as a poster above mentions). Especially considering that the RIAA and MPAA have yet to prove any actual harm from file sharing. The would-be plaintiff suffered actual harm as a direct result of the government's boogie-man chasing.

Oh please, what about the poor "innocent" artists, musicians, filmmakers, authors whose work was routinely ripped off and monetized by Megaupload and its affiliates? Face the fact that theirs was a business model predicated on piracy.

Those who lost their work should blame Megaupload for using an illegal business model, not those who closed it down. The victims here are victims because of Megaupload's illegal/illicit practices.

First, how was Mr Goodwin supposed to know that and second, you totally do not get how videos get popular on the Internet and how that is mostly beneficial to "indie filmmakers" artists and musicians.

PR people routinely "leak" songs and videos to create buzz.

It's Hollywood's antiquated business models that should be questioned here.

If Mr. Doccom did break any law, he can be taken to court in an orderly fashion, without inconveniencing his innocent customers.

The point here is that the government handled this in a ham-fisted way by disconnecting the servers where a more reasonable approach would have been to only allow original uploaders access to their data (as a poster above mentions). Especially considering that the RIAA and MPAA have yet to prove any actual harm from file sharing. The would-be plaintiff suffered actual harm as a direct result of the government's boogie-man chasing.

Well in NZ, US government has been actively attempting to refuse Dotcom access the resources to defend himself; including money, access to his own hard drives, FBI case against him etc etc. Also attempting to call upon Record of Case for Dotcom's extradition.

This case has not been good for NZ court and politicians. It makes them look increasingly like puppet for US interests (which they are).

I've always wondered why nobody uses superior file hosting services like MediaFire and always wants to use inferior services like Megaupload that make you wait between downloads, only let you download one file at a time, and generally restrict you in all the ways that hosting services like MediaFire do not, even as a free service. This boggles my mind more than anything.

I've always wondered why nobody uses superior file hosting services like MediaFire and always wants to use inferior services like Megaupload that make you wait between downloads, only let you download one file at a time, and generally restrict you in all the ways that hosting services like MediaFire do not, even as a free service. This boggles my mind more than anything.

In cases like this, people using MediaFire would be just as susceptible to losing their data. Remember, this wasn't problem with quality of service. It was someone else telling MegaUpload to shut their entire service down.

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.